


Seeing You Again

by Serpine



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: 1920's aesthetic, Angst, Loki is oblivious, M/M, Sif is flapper, Sif still badass, Thor is pining, attempted suicide, desk sex hopefully, mafia, mafia!au, mob stuff, other sex stuff, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:56:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4237995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serpine/pseuds/Serpine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years have passed since the day Thor watched his brother commit suicide.  As heir to the mafia group Odin runs, Thor is set on a certain path; fighting Laufey and his gang, marrying his girlfriend Sif, and, unfortunately, being obsessed with his dead brother just doesn't factor into it.  <br/>That all changes when Loki reappears in town, alive, and working for their rival gang, no less.  Thor finally has what he's always wanted within his grasp once again, but can he take it?  Can he figure out what drove his brother so far that night, and how he survived?  Or will the answers to the questions he's always had change everything?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys~ This is my Thorki Mafia AU, inspired by the work of ikoluesi on tumblr, the link is here—http://ikoluesi.tumblr.com  
> The original thing's a comic, btw

     Only the sound of knuckles on bones could be heard in the warehouse. This place, like the seemingly harmless neighborhood around it, was totally quiet. They would not use guns, and there would be no shouting. After all, the neighbors didn’t deserve to have their rest interrupted. The only tools at their disposal were their fists, the knives laid generously around the room, the cement shoes in the corner, and the imagination of the man they were torturing. He’d sold them out to a rival gang— a would-be lucrative deal with one of Laufey’s sons if Odin hadn’t caught wind of it.

     His mouth was gagged. That was the way the Odinson’s did all their business. The location was pragmatic, the results efficient, and the methods brutal.

    And there was no other person Odin would send out than Thor.

    He was an incredibly handsome young man. He had grown into adulthood well. All that puppy-like gracelessness, stumbling enthusiasm and big muscle had been scrubbed off like an idle dream. He had leaned out into a man that knew his own power, moved comfortably in his skin, and when he walked into a room, he possessed it. His eyes were the brightest thing about him, a cold, electric blue that made even his golden hair and tan skin seem dull in comparison. He wore a designer suit, and underneath it was a gun he slept with, and a knife that never left his sheath except for when he needed to stick a hole in someone. He was the son of the Mafia, born and bred in the height of it’s era.

    He kneeled down, his immaculate shoes keeping well away from the blood on the concrete floor. “Hey there tough guy,” his voice was low and rough. He yanked the gag off. He was beginning to sound like his father, all that boyish softness taken away two years ago when… well, when he grew up. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

     “I can get you money,” the man in the chair blurted out. Before he’d offered apologies and explanations, promises were what came next. “I can get you enough to make you rich! C’mon, I’ve been loyal to your father for years… I just made one slip up… that man, that smooth talker… told me it was for the best…” Thor calmly reached and pulled his greasy hair until they were nose to nose.

    “You shouldn’t trust slimy goons of Laufey to tell you what to do,” his mouth twisted. “It’s not his ass that’s on the line right now.” He slammed one well polished shoe into his head. “Okay boys, show this old boy here to the docks for me, will you?” The men grabbed him up and began to prepare what they’d need to do away with him. Thor was glad it wasn’t him having to deal with it tonight.

    His suit was new, form-fitting and perfect. He couldn’t stay to stick around and deal with any messes.He had a date.

 

 

   She came out of the limousine, a shimmer of gold beads and a hint of knees, her dark hair up, and her lips and checks brushed with red. She looked so delicate, so feminine and appropriately wife-material, it made Thor grin. He’d once seen Sif take down a thief with a single hit, had sent him spinning into the harbor bay. His father didn’t know about that side of her, so he approved of the seemingly-helpless girl act she put on. Thor knew everything about that side of her, from helping her put on her boxing gloves to feeling the keen sting of her kicks, and he appreciated her for it.

   He couldn’t love her, but he might marry her.

   He held out a hand, “Sif. You look ravishing tonight.” And she did. That glossy black hair and sharp eyes reminded Thor enough of him that his smile was entirely natural. She smiled back, pleased.

    “You too, my darling man. I suppose work is done for the evening, then?”

     “Work’s never done, you know that, Doll.” She took his arm and they set out at a jaunty pace, ignoring the men tailing them. People either got out of their way or were desperate to garner some attention. That was fine. The whole point of the exercise was to get attention. “There’s a gang encroaching on our territory,” Thor said off-handedly. “Laufey and his sons are leading it, which is nothing new.”

   Her grip on his arm tightened. “I know.” She smiled tightly. “Heard it from the girls at the shop.” She checked around them for close ears, and leaned in and whispered, “There’s a new player.”

   “The smooth talker.” Thor growled. They didn’t talk as they entered the speak-easy, letting who they were and what they looked like do the talking for them. The bar was overrun with people, as usual. Everyone knew to go there, and the cops were bribed and convinced to look to fill their quotas elsewhere. You couldn’t move a foot without bumping into someone else’s, but there was always a spot for Thor and his lady.

    “Reminds me of the way Loki used to talk,” she said without preamble, leaving Thor feeling and looking like he’d just gotten one of her jabs hard on his stomach. Sif noticed the look on his face. She was looking closely for it, she had needed to see it. She wanted to put it as gently as possible, for his sake.  “It’s been two years, Thor. You’ve seen people die before.”

   “Not like that,” he said thickly. “He was my brother.”  Like that was all there was needed to explain their relationship, like that could convey how tightly wound together they were— not close, not in the traditional sense of brothers— but every second was like electricity, every moment that Loki and Thor had been the same room, made his blood come alive…

    “Excuse me.”

     He walked out in the middle of the bar room, Sif watching him from behind with an amused expression. The way he carried himself made people move to the side. The ones left in the middle were his friends, his enemies, people who loved and hated him, everyone who knew he wanted this fight. There was no guarantee of safety: he wouldn’t want this if there was.

    There was a moment of silence, where eyes were met and understandings made, and Thor was the first to throw a punch. Bottles were smashed, the jagged sharp edges coming straight towards him, towards his arms and head and stomach. He grabbed the skinny wrist of one man coming at him— _Loki’s wrist and hands were so slender, he reckoned only a bit of force could break them_ — and bent it viciously backwards, slamming an elbow into his nose for good riddance. He turned only to feel a fist like a rock twisting into his cheek. He was down for a moment, then back up and his fists were up, and they were sparring like boxers— _Loki learning to fight, the frustration and redness in his cheeks, finally, here is something Thor can beat him at_. When others came close he slammed their heads into tables and chairs. He twisted his opponents knee with a cruel kick.

     He went to another man, losing himself in the fight and the blood and the pure focus he got out of it. He never felt closer to his memories— _to Loki_ — than he did when he was fighting. He loved it. He hated it. He wondered what Loki would think of him now, his gentle, cheerful older brother, succumbed to what their father wanted, dreams of university and a company gone. He wondered if Loki would hate this version of him, or if he would finally see him as…

     An elbow rightfully dislodged that thought from him, and made his vision blur when his head hit the table. The man tried to get in closer. Thor allowed it, for the moment he did, Thor was wrapped around him, bending him and pushing him with all the strength of the remarkable wrestler he once was. He jabbed in his eyes, because he was more than just an ambitious kid now. He was his father’s son. He pulled out of the broken melee, clattering over bloodied bodies to the cheering of the crowd. Dames and shebas whistling and hollering over their men exchanging money and gossip.

    Sif sitting above it all, smirking. Though that smirk, while feminine and perfect and everything he should want, did not make his pulse race. It couldn’t compare to the pale thin lips, and vivid green eyes, and never would. He wanted to turn his back, to pretend there was still another person waiting at home for him, that two years hadn’t gone by. He couldn’t, though.

    He had responsibilities, to her, to his father, and to the family. He pulled her into his arms with a low growl, entirely faked. The bar cheered when he kissed her. He could taste mint on her breath— _he and Loki had never kissed ~~of course not why would they, brothers don’t~~_ — and her hair was soft in his hand— _Loki’s hair was stiff with jell but he never stopped wanting to touch it_ — and her lips were red when he pulled back. _Red like the blood on the floor that his brother slumped in, red like the split lip of the man that pulled Thor back, red like Frigga’s eyes at the funeral, red of the closed casket, hiding the bullet wound from view_ — _the bullet Loki put in his own head._

 

 

    On the other side of the city, a young man was winding down the last part of his day, and his face was flecked with blood. It was someone else’s naturally, and he looked down at their body, already cooling in the cold Chicago air, before smiling at the driver, gaping out the window of the car. He was a loyal member of Laufey’s family, and had been strongly against the young man’s joining. When the young man had been ordered to go and deliver punishment, he’d politely requested the older man’s company.

   They had to understand what he was here for, they had to understand how deeply he hated Odin, or his plans could never work. He felt no loyalty to Laufey, everyone knew it, but they had to understand that his hatred more than made up for it.

    No need for clean up: let everyone know exactly what he’d done here today to the Odinson’s. The rain would soon wash away the blood on the red bricks, the evidence, everything. The sky was a perfect grey mixture of smoke, chemicals and stormy Lake Michigan weather. It complimented his vest, his black coat, and brought out his vivid green eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

 

    “Loki, come in please.” The tone did not suggest a request, and a part of him balked at the command. Once, there was a time when the only one who could talk to him like that had been his father and his mother. If any member of the Odinsons or even Thor were to talk to him like that, it would mean a quick wail to summon his parents and a lifetime of suffering pranks.

     He reminded himself that he was an adult, swallowed his pride and entered on his command like a dog.

     Laufey was scribbling away at his desk. Loki doubted it was anything substantial; part of politics was looking busier than you actually were. It was about intimidation and power. A scare tactic used to keep subordinates in their place. It was insulting Laufey thought it’d work on him. He’d studied them more than anyone else, had applied them with aptitude beyond anything this scrawny little man could manage.

     He’d once thought Laufey looked like a rat. Odin was so much stronger and more capable looking. Not thin and reedy, but strong and dashing.

     Loki clenched his hands where Laufey couldn’t see them. Of course, Odin and Laufey were both old— which made any strength a thing of the past.

     He fought to keep the snarl off his face, the fury that such feeble old men could control their lives in any way making his blood boil.

      The years were passing for him and for Thor. He could feel his brother’s presence, on the other side of the city, sometimes in the building next door, and each time he struggled not to approach him, not to see him. The way it had ended the last time…  No, he wasn't ready to face his brother, not yet.

      He hoped in the years he’d been gone Thor’s muscles had gone to fat, that his thick hair was falling out. That he wasn’t the golden boy everyone had always loved. But Loki wasn’t optimistic.

      It was several, would-be uncomfortable moments before Laufey looked up. While Loki kept his eyes ahead and his hands in his lap out of respect, he struggled not to look bored and insolent, which was what he was. As if this little man could make him squirm. As if he could treat him like a dog. Him! His own son. His face remained as blank as a sheet of paper, while on the inside his lip curled.

      No, he would not show petulance or anger to this man. He held Laufey’s eyes. The green in their eyes seemed to reflect and warp around each other’s, and still Loki kept repeating it to himself. He would not show anger. He would be respectful. He was too good to let anything bad happen again. He was too—

      _Fingers wrapped around his own, palms pressing his head down so he had to watch, feeling the crunch of cartilage breaking as he stammered out apologies. Hands pushed his head down farther, his forehead against the floor, but his pride wouldn’t allow it, wouldn’t allow groveling, so each time he struggled away. A mistake, what a mistake._

_His ears rang with the force of his skull hitting concrete, old stitches reopening and spilling blood across the floor._

_Or maybe that was a new wound?_

_So hard to tell._

_A voice like grating chalk in his ears, hot breath against his face, telling him what to do, not to mess it up this time. His shoulder sizzled with pain, a cigarette puncturing the skin to reinforce the threat. To reinforce the pain._

     —His eyes dropped. Laufey looked satisfied, momentarily. In the next instant, all content was erased from his face.

      “My lieutenant tells me you have some ideas for our business.” To keep his hands steady, Loki reminded himself that the contempt on his father’s face was not directed towards him, but ever present in business. The condescending sneer was not because his ideas were bad, but because they weren’t his. He was not going to mess this up.

      “Yes, sir.”

     Laufey leaned back in his chair. His curved, long nose wrinkled in disdain. “What have I told you about thinking, Loki?” Loki kept his eyes low, knowing he didn’t have to respond. This was all so that his father could remind him how stupid, how worthless he was, how he didn’t want a son raised by the Odinsons, how fucked up his existence had been since the Odinsons took him. “Have I told you it was okay for you to approach me with ideas?” Laufey waited a beat. “You got damn lucky last time, thinking up what you did. Pure luck. Otherwise I would’ve tossed you out and dashed your head against the sidewalk. If you don’t have something better this time…” He let the threat dangle, smiling wide and hungry.

      “Yes, sir.” He took a deep breath. “Thor used to be my brother—“

       Laufey’s lips curled in displeasure, and so Loki hurried on. “I know what he eats for breakfast, I know what route he takes to the grocery store, I know who he’s fucked, I know how to get him to fight, and I know how to get him to yield.” Loki smirked, a slight stiffness to it as he pushed nostalgia down and brought up the ruthlessness his father wanted to see. “Thor’s been dancing to my tune ever since we were kids. All it’s ever taken is a dare or sniffle, and he’s gone running off to do whatever I wanted.” Loki turned his absolute attention to his birth father, seeing in the tightness of his mouth and the sharpness of his gaze something that no amount of threats and bluster could hide. He was very, very interested in hearing about his son’s influence over the Odinsons.

       It was the same hunger that had driven father and son together in the first place.

       Now, Loki brushed a hand over his slight lower lips, physical contact grounding him from smiling with the predatory hunger that would challenge Laufey.

        This was when he had to be the most convincing; so he drove his pride down and the teeming shouting voices in his head telling him that he was too good for Laufey, too smart, and he remembered best he could the humiliating lessons Laufey had made him learn. _I am good_ , he breathed out and his face smoothed out, the vulnerability in his eyes making him look five years younger, _I am the perfect liar, and the perfect predator, and when I strike, he will not know what I’ve done._ His face rose to his father, and his fists clenched.

      “I’ve done all I could to be a good son to you. All I want is a chance to prove myself, to prove that I’m not one of them, not one of the Odinsons— If you give me the chance, I can tear Odin down. Through Thor, by your hands, have him killed, and then,” painfully hopeful, shoulders tucked weakly, he gazed up at his birth father, green eyes glittering, “I hope you might be able to accept me as your son and heir.”

      The pause before Laufey tore into him told him all he needed to know.

      The pause told him Laufey had fallen for it; hook, line and sinker. All the sneering in the world couldn’t hid Laufey’s interest, and he barely even contained his smirking, so confident his weak and naive son would bend over backwards to see his birth father happy. It was disgusting. It was cheap and stupid, and it was exactly what Loki wanted.

      _I have you now,_ he thought grimly.  All trace of his birth father was gone from his face. The distance and calculation in Laufey’s eyes were a shadow compared to the glacial cunning in the curve of Loki’s smile. It was his mother, Farbauti, shining through. Though he couldn’t have known it, she had been a force of nature when she was alive. A foreign actress that clawed her way to the top and could have Laufey on his knees with a few words. In the minds of Farbauti and her son, there was no room for hesitation.

      He breathed out all the fluttering doubts he had about what he was about to do.

      Laufey joined him in the hallway and Loki took a breath before putting on a mask of pure simple-minded devotion, following a few steps behind his father. Euphoric, Laufey stepped before his dealers and followers, a crowd of them looking curiously to see what was making Laufey grin so cruelly, so triumphantly.

      Unexpectedly, Laufey threw his arms around Loki’s shoulders. “All hail,” Impressively his voice carried only a hint of mocking, given that he had no intention of making Loki anything. Which was fine. Let the irony kill him, the bastard. He didn’t need his father’s approval to snatch the gang out from under his feet. “My son and your future leader, Loki!”


	3. Chapter 3

 

     When Loki had pressed the barrel of a gun to his head so many years ago, he had planned to make it a negotiation. Well, that wasn’t what he was thinking, but maybe that was path his subconscious was driving him to, the way to get what he wanted. What better way than to hold a gun to the head of a family member? Even if it was himself.  
     He wanted what Thor had.  
     But no, when it got done to it, he hadn’t wanted to shoot himself. Hadn’t expected to. He supposed it wasn’t really a suicide attempt, then, no matter what anyone else said. He’d just wanted Thor’s… life. And his attention. All of their attention. If that made him desperation, then yes. He was desperate.  
      Thor was becoming a man.  
      A good man, a strong man, the kind of man that could look their father into his one dull blue eye and tell him to his face that he wouldn’t take over the gang. That he wanted to go to college. That he wanted to be normal. That was the kind of man and the kind of son Thor had become. The kind that could directly go against everything Odin had ever prepared them for, and have this gross defiance, this stupid, pointless declaration be greeted with cheers of delight. Cheers of support, from their mother, his friends, with some persuading, the gang and their father.  
And Loki, stupid little brother Loki, had frantically tried to talk him out of it in the months before. The only one who knew Thor’s intent, who blindly rejected the idea and panicked at the thought of what their father might do. And didn’t he look stupid when everything fell right into the golden boy’s hands, and he was the only one left with any protestations against Thor’s dreams, the only one that hadn’t received the news with happiness and support.  
      So very stupid.  
      He’d thought to himself, if Thor could change their minds, why couldn’t he?  
      Granted, he didn’t know what he wanted, but that was fine. He was eighteen years old. He had time. Or so he’d thought.  
      He approached his father late one night. His mother and brother in the room next door, his father smoking a fine cigarette, reveling in his late night whiskey. The fire place glowing next to him. The best time to catch his father in a good mood.  
      Loki wore his sharpest suit, the tailor-made kind that the middle class always tried to imitate, but he wore it like the blood-money blue blood he was. The edges of that suit were green, his signature color. He’d hoped he wasn’t sweating, but he’d felt nerves like he’d hadn’t felt since the first time he’d watched a man die. And his father’s dull grey eyes didn’t help. Didn’t offer mercy or make any allowances for Loki’s blood connection to him.  
     He’d made his statement. He didn’t remember much about that, all of it lost in a the ensuing panic and despair and trauma, but he remembered the way he’d built his courage up for days. He remembered the low tenor of his father’s voice, separating his control over his body with the cool knife edge of fear. Remembered the disdain in his voice, the complete dismissal and the burn of humiliation in his cheeks and seemingly taking over his body. The kind that settled in his arms, hands, feet, head and made him sick. The sick knowledge he had in that moment that his confidence and happiness had been shattered.  
      And then feeling the cool weight of his gun at this side. As the son of a gang leader, the revolver was an ever-constant friend.  
      Pulling it out and pointing. Finding courage hiding behind it.  
      Having all of that blown away by the lack of emotion in his father’s eye. Still the same insidious, apathetic grey. Loki said— Loki said something pathetic— something desperate—maybe it was a shout, but what Odin said next was cuttingly soft and sharp.  
      And it rang of the truth, from his tone to the expression of relief on his face when he said it.  
      “‘Your son, your son’ you keep on saying that—I think it’s high time I stop coddling you, Loki. You’re almost a man now, you deserve to hear who your real father is—“ and despite the shock of what he was saying, it rang true for Loki too, the moment the words left his mouth— “Just the progeny of Laufey I picked up after a fight. A playmate for Thor to grow up with, someone to be his lackey. And yet you ask for a future.”  
      He’d turned from the room, and opened up the door, gun still in his hand, desperate, eyes wide and unseeing, and found another target. Two different people to hide behind, who Odin couldn’t bear to lose.  
      His mother— and she was still that— Frigga, looking as lovely as ever, her eyes melting past Loki’s gun. The way they always seemed to when he was in danger, or dangerous. Her son was always what mattered. The gun could’ve been rose, the fever in his eyes could have been a sickness. It didn’t matter to her. He was still the same little boy that hid underneath the table and cried out with joy when she found. All those years she spent indulging him and Thor equally… well, it was the only equality the two brothers experienced. No, his gun couldn’t point towards her.  
      Thor. He pointed the gun at him, seeing past the barrel of the gun to the target, as he was trained to. And it wasn’t hard. Not as hard as it should have been. Just a playmate for Thor, just a lackey. It gave him a hard, unexplainable rush to his stomach to point that gun at Thor, who reacted with all the grace of a newborn puppy to the changing situation.  
      Maybe, Loki thought for one desperate moment. Maybe that was why Father was willing to let him go. That soft face, gold hair, knight in shining armor heart. If he couldn’t handle the betrayal of the people closest to him, he just couldn’t survive.  
     “Loki?” He was smaller behind the barrel of a gun. Less like the brother he knew and worshipped all those years. Less like a god.  
      “Don’t move,” Loki warned. Fingers tightening on the trigger, heat growing in his stomach, his voice surprising calm, deceptively gentle.  
      There was a tide moving in his veins, stronger than it ever had before. Because of course he’d had this feeling before. Had sought it. Had brought it about. Putting hair dye in his shampoo, cutting the hair of his lovers, mixing salt and sugar on his food.  
       Child’s play compared to holding a gun to his face.  
        All that attention on him, all that needless, stupid jealously punted to the side with the full force of Thor’s brightness on him, the attention in his eyes showing that he wasn’t stupid no matter how many times Loki called him that, just because he hated how Thor acted, how he pretended. Beneath the sight of a gun, Thor looked like an attainable, living human being. Someone he could walk up to and have a normal conversation with, rest his hands against. Ridiculous that it would take the context of a gun pointed at him to bring about that image.  
       “This is ridiculous. Are you going to shoot your own family?” The glass of whiskey dangling casually in his fingers, dull eye smiling with the same condescending amusement. His bearded mouth opened in a silent expression, a slight “oh right” that spoke as clearly as words would have. His eyes dared Loki to reveal it to the rest of the family.  
       “Father, what’s going on here?” And Thor was a god again, looking past Loki to his—to his father. And it all made sense. Why he could never catch up to him, why he could never seem to get enough of his attention. If Odin was the moon, that he could never touch, never feel, only see distantly… then Thor was the sun.  
       And he felt his warmth, and could never have enough. Not if he spent every day in his presence. Not if Thor grabbed him, pulled him in close and burned him where he stood.  
       “What’s Loki doing?” His shoulders relaxed, comfortable as he looked past his troublesome brother to their father, tone suggesting this was something that happened normally. Just strange little Loki, up to his old tricks again, but jeez, isn’t he taking it a bit too far this time?  
       “I do not know,” Odin relied in the same infuriating way. “He’s being a bit foolish right now. A little irrational. I think it’s about time he retire.”  
        And what could he say? What could he, the great silver tongue, the slimiest smooth talker, the smartest kid on the debate team, say in response?  
        Absolutely nothing.  
        Just readjust his grip on the trigger. And do what he was trained to do, what he had always done better than Thor, for all his hard headed masculinity. He put the gun to his head.  
         Finally found the words. Pathetic, for him. But what else was there left to say? “I’m not your brother. I never was.”  
         And pull.

         He was glad his mother was an excellent conversationalist, because that evening before everything went to hell, he could’ve been deaf, oblivious to the English language, or petrified for all the words he managed to get out. He wondered how his mother could not mention it, could not mention the state he was in. His entire world blown to shreds, and he was the only one who knew it.  
        He was gay, and going to college, and free from the mafia.  
        And gay. And gay and gay and gay. That was the one that kept moving around his head, like a cycle he couldn’t break, couldn’t look away from, either in fascination or horror. They were all related, of course. It started out with Steve, that amazing quarterback with the all-american boy smile. He used to hate Steve. He was everything he’d been taught to hate, which was strangely alluring. Never mind that he already had a boyfriend, a brunette with a smile soft and glowing near Steve, that twisted into a hard, dauntless smirk whenever Thor walked by.  
        Made him want to fight.  
        And fight they did, for years, meeting each other in every dark alleyway, every hallway the teachers wouldn’t catch them. Thor kicked his ass, but only most of the time. Some of the time. It was even. Until that afternoon, when they’d wiped the blood off their mouths, sat down and had a talk that eventually creeped into the territory of Thor cautiously asking about how they knew they were gay. They’d answered. They’d talked some more, and he’d come home that night flushed and breathless with something new inside of him.  
         And after that, fuck it.  
          He didn’t want to be head of the family, but he didn’t exactly want to be gay either. He couldn’t have kids— or at the very least wouldn’t— so why put on the facade. It was the ballsiest thing he’d ever done, going to his father like that, and he’d done plenty of ridiculous, reckless things in his time.  
          Loki had always wanted to be head anyway.  
          He figured that was the reason behind all the pranks, all the hot glares of jealously every time people swarmed Thor in response to his status. He missed his little brother. Missed having him tucked away under one arm, the only damn person in the world who cared about what he was thinking, who was his friend, the way they used to be before Loki’s pride and Thor’s arrogance had driven them apart. He missed that.  
         So his silence was partly the overwhelming influx of change and knowledge in his life, the turning point in what could have been the rest of his life, and part of it was giddy exaltation. The lightness in his stomach that screamed yes, yes, yes, and the hope opening up before him.  
        He tried to repress the stupidly happy smile on his face, but he knew that his mother had seen through him. That was what made it so easy for her to keep talking, chattering on in that light, merry voice that filled Thor and the room with buoyancy.  
       The slightest of interruptions in his mood, mowed over like a mouse before a freight train. Shouting in the other room. A raised, unhappy voice he recognized as his brother at his worst—all the logic leaving him, sullen and spoiled-sounding. He flicked it away like a basking dog flicks away a fly.  
      The sound faded soon anyway, replaced by his father’s low timbre voice.  
       Loki opened up the door to the room in typical melodrama, the door slamming against the wall, reverberating and shattering the good mood.  
       He was annoyed.  
       Loki’s eyes were unseeing, in one hand his gun held carelessly, going against everything they’d ever been taught about carrying guns since they were children. Behind him, Odin frowned in his chair, moved to approach the door.  
       His eyes focused and aimed for a moment at their mother, the precision of his gaze cutting for a moment, that sharp mind working beneath the faintly confused expression. His eyes found Thor, connected. His mouth worked around something, made a word, a slight sound or a sharp intact of breath from those thin, dangerous, poison-spitting lips.  
       The gun rose and pointed to him.  
        “Don’t move.”  
         Loki’s eyes hot on him. Raking him like he hadn’t seen him in years, sending a flush of awareness down to his toes.  
         His father’s voice, “This is ridiculous…” All of it gone out of sight, because Thor was swallowing down an emotion he couldn’t name, pushing past something that had just moments ago rejoiced at a new found revelation. He wanted Loki’s eyes back on him. He wanted the gun down, or the gun up, whatever would get his attention. That was so wrong. He shouldn’t want his brother’s attention like that, so badly.  
        He put on a purposeful display of antipathy, finding it as easy to slip into as an old jacket. He felt his voice should shake, his lips should quiver, but it was all so easy to say, “Father, what’s going on here?” Easier to focus on him than the kid brother that was always following him around, begging for attention, that made his blood boil and turn to ice with a few provocative words. The one that had, just a moment ago, looked at him like he could swallow Thor up and never let him go. The one who’s composure was slipping.  
       He had to make this normal. God, what was the family dynamic like between normal siblings? What would an older brother sound like if he hadn’t just a second before thought about his little brother’s eyes on him and felt blood rush downward?  
       It came out too relaxed to be plausible under normal circumstances. “What’s Loki doing?”  
       His father responded.  
        Loki’s face fell inward at their tone, their light banter, their casualty. The light died in his eyes, and Thor felt acutely the painful loss of it. A mere suggestion, a warning, for what he was about to endure.  
       Loki put the gun to his head. Said the words. Pulled the trigger.  
       And that version of himself, that childhood self, Thor, died along with him.


End file.
